Henry's Ridge Cleanup

Hi All,
Like everywhere else Henry's trails are covered with branches and fallen trees. Yesterday I started cleaning up the trail in from the watertower park. I only went 15 feet in and found the the first pile of fallen branches. As I crawled in further lots and lots of downed branches and some fallen trees. I cut out three trees just to get to Tanner's boy scout bridge. The bridge is intact. After that more branches. And more branches and another tree. I then retrieved some raking tools from the tool stash and worked until 2:30. All of the snow and ice still on the ground didn't help. Cleanup should be a lot easier when all that melts away. The best tool for the trail tread would seem to be a garden rake but anything tool of that type, even a lawn rake, is a must. Having a good pruning saw goes without saying. I will return soon when I get the chance maybe on Saturday. I got word that other people are working on some of the other Henry's trails. Take care people and look out for branches still hung up in the trees.

my friend and i spent a couple hours clearing about 1/2 of the trail on the opposite side of the flowpark road at summit ridge today. had to drag a couple 15' tree tops off the trail and cleared many, many piles of branches. it was nuts. we rode in without any tools, save for a leatherman. a metal rake and handsaw would've been a huge plus. it was freaky how many branches were stuck in the ground like javelins. about 18" of one of the tops we pulled out was stuck in the trail. definitely be careful!

I spent 4 hours on Saturday with a buddy clearing Viper at Henry's. Spent about 2 1/2 hours on Sunday with my nephew working on Anaconda and only got about about a half mile cleared. The good news is the guys got out to Summit Ridge on Sunday and Deliverance, Tribulation and Holly Roller 1 are cleared. Some work will be done on Holly Roller 2 today so it may get cleared soon. I also heard there was a big crew at the free ride park on Sunday.

"THANKS TO ALL THE VOLUNTEERS!"

I will be scheduling a more formal work party to continue working at Henry's Ridge for the upcoming weekend. Watch the EMBA calendar.

PS.
I am "hoping" we collectively can focus our efforts to get the trail system cleared before we start riding the cleared trails. A pair of gloves and a good limbing saw will address most of the blockage. And you don't have to wait for a work party to jump in. Just be safe!

Please post here as well!

Originally Posted by Summit Ridge Guy

I spent 4 hours on Saturday with a buddy clearing Viper at Henry's. Spent about 2 1/2 hours on Sunday with my nephew working on Anaconda and only got about about a half mile cleared. The good news is the guys got out to Summit Ridge on Sunday and Deliverance, Tribulation and Holly Roller 1 are cleared. Some work will be done on Holly Roller 2 today so it may get cleared soon. I also heard there was a big crew at the free ride park on Sunday.

"THANKS TO ALL THE VOLUNTEERS!"

I will be scheduling a more formal work party to continue working at Henry's Ridge for the upcoming weekend. Watch the EMBA calendar.

PS.
I am "hoping" we collectively can focus our efforts to get the trail system cleared before we start riding the cleared trails. A pair of gloves and a good limbing saw will address most of the blockage. And you don't have to wait for a work party to jump in. Just be safe!

Please also post the work party here. A bunch of us want to lend a hand to get Sawyer back to rideable condition asap! I think a few of us plan to be out there Sunday morning anyway.

How about the other side of 169...any plans to clean up those trails (Ed's Woods, Toy Tree, etc.)?

Both of those areas are gray trails (Yarrow Bay Land and a Private land owner). I think our priority will be to clean up the legit trails first. Have you assessed the trails on the west side? Seems like there is a crew that tends to clean up at least Ed's Woods. Then there are the trails east of Summit Ridge on the Plum Creek property. I have heard they got trashed pretty good also.

Both of those areas are gray trails (Yarrow Bay Land and a Private land owner). I think our priority will be to clean up the legit trails first. Have you assessed the trails on the west side? Seems like there is a crew that tends to clean up at least Ed's Woods. Then there are the trails east of Summit Ridge on the Plum Creek property. I have heard they got trashed pretty good also.

I will post the plan we come up for the weekend.

One of the guys we ride with checked out Ed's Woods and said it was pretty trashed. We usually ride both sides in the Winter...parts on the west side seem to drain better than the Summit Ridge trails.

I will keep my eye out for a work party notice for the weekend. Like I said, some of us plan to head out Sunday morning...would be nice to get with some other folks.

PS - We are xc riders...don't usually venture into the area with the jumps, etc.

sunday clean up

I've got 5 of us committed to be out 8 am on Sunday to do some clean up. We are bringing rakes, limbing saws, chain saws.

There might be more people signed up by Sunday. Don't know where we will start...don't really know the names of all the trails we ride. A couple of folks live right by the trails and know access roads, etc. We will get that all figured out by Sunday.

If anyone else plans to be out there Sunday, shoot me a PM and maybe we can join forces.

What areas of summit ridge still need cleanup. Looking to go out on sunday the 29th. Are the trails some what rideable or should i just plan on just walking in with more tools than a folding saw in my pack. Spent 4hrs on the 25th east of the freeride park.

Hey Sparkyrides, the word coming in from the crew is all the big stuff is off the trails at Summit Ridge. Everything is ridable but Deliverance and Tribulation could use a raking to get the derailleur busters off the trail.

Henry's Ridge:
We had probably had 15 guys show up this morning.
-Viper is cleared and raked
-Once Upon A Time is cleared and raked up to the top (I hear there is one rootball that needs some TLC.
- Anaconda is 75% cleared and raked. The eastern section is the part that is left to go including a tree across the trail.
- Some guys worked on Python but I don't have a report.
- If you enter the trail by the big water tower and across the boyscout bridge, portions of that is cleared up into the new trail section.

A lot got done today and this last week but there is a lot more work to go. THANKS to all the guys that have been helping!!!

PS.
We had one guy come riding by with his dog into the section of trail we had not even got to yet. He didn't stop, he did not even say thanks. He must of carried his bike most of the time. What's up with that?? Sorry. I had to vent...

Today Peter Partel and I continued cleaning up the trail in from the watertower park. We were part of a large group organized by Rick. As before lots and lots of downed branches and some fallen trees. The fallen trees were for the most part the broken tops of trees. The tools we used were a fire rake, garden rake, lawn rake, and hand saws. I estimate that about 40% of the Henry's north trails are now cleared. We also saw the guy who came riding by with his dog. He rode in behind us. Barely said hi and gave no thanks for all the work being done. Be careful everyone. Still plenty of branches hung up in the trees.

sunday progress

Six of us hit the Plum Creek trails off of Ravensdale road. Surprisingly, the trails that parallel the road had been cleared. We found a couple of riders who told us where the bad spots were. I don't know exactly how to describe them, but if you ride Tribulation, they are part of the trails that split off to the left about 1/3 way into tribulation. Started at the end and worked our way back. Cleared about 1.5 miles of trails in 3+ hours.

Still lots of work to be done out there, but was encouraged to see progress being made on clean up.

Deliverence and Tribulation we in pretty good shape yesterday (minus the deep puddles). Snow cap was ridable, but the loop that I ran into you (Rick) was in terrible shape. We moved about 100 branches and 2 small trees off the trail, but it still has a ton of work left to do on it, including the clearing of one decent size tree.